(My official transcription starts on page 15- Gina Maggio) 

Interview with Mark Medlyn

April 1, 2023

Memorial Stadium

Champaign, IL 

I = Interviewer

S = Sound Engineer

R = Record Keeper

M = Mark Medlyn

M: Price of corn cratered. But the debt, you know, my first house, which is I bought right after Farm aid, couple months after Farm Aid was at 13% interest.

I: Wow.

M: You ask your parents or your grandparents and your parents and grandparents, not your parents, but your grandparents, they would know. 13% interest. 

I: Gosh.

M: I mean there was, just a real, uh, you know, everybody's complaining about 6% interest. I'm like, well.

I: Yeah.

M: You know, a $59,000 house on a 40 year mortgage, 30 year mortgage was for 51.09. That's what I own. It's a $50,000 house on a 30 year mortgage for 51.09. Two percent mortgage, you know, it'd be like closer to 200. So yeah, it was, it was a real, it was a real, um, it was a really hard time, you know, in terms of the area, I mean. Um, if you're not, um, not poking fun of you guys, but if you're not from here and have, you know you go out in the fields and you look at that Steiger, you look at that John Deere. You look at that international. And those tractors are $600,000. And what's going on now is that back then my father-in-law could fix the tractor. Now, because of proprietary software, you have to call a mechanic down and there's only so many mechanics working. You got to pay him his time from the time he leaves the shop until he comes back at about $90.00 an hour. So what usually used to be able to do in 1982, you now have to pay somebody several hundred dollars to do plus the machine is down. For, and so you know we talked about the Farm Crisis in 1982. I'm not sure it's gotten any better. 

 

I: Yeah, I come from a family of farmers as well. 

M: Okay, where up. What county? 

I: They live near Pesotum, John Jeannie Goodman.

M: Okay.

I: Yeah. 

M: So you're from Champaign County.

I: I am, yes.

M: You went to Unit 4, Unit 7? 

I: Uh, no. I went to Saint Matthews and Saint Thomas Moore growing up. 

M: Okay, alright, alright so you understand you know, you understand that, you know. Um, now of course they're not paying road tax, but they're still paying $3 a gallon, and if your combine or your, um, tractor is using 40 gallons an hour or 50 gallons an hour, that's a, you know you're, you're, $150.00 an hour to run! 

I: Also being a police officer were there any other stories you wanted to share about maybe some, like, um, some things you witnessed going on amongst farm families? 

M: We didn't. We, you know, because we're city officers. We really didn't, you know, we didn't deal with the rural aspect of it. We would never, for example, be involved in a foreclosure. That's not our r-, that's, even in town, a foreclosure or an eviction is not, that's not our responsibility. That's the responsibility of the Sheriff's department. So the Sheriff's department would have had jurisdiction more along those. So, you know, realistically, you know, my career was either spent in Northeast Champaign. Where we had, you know, shootings out the ear or down, you know, on campus where we dealt with students all day long. 

I: Yeah. Were there any stories you heard from colleagues that maybe were-? 

M: You know, it really was, I can tell you, you know, we debriefed informally. And there was really, it was really for us. It was a non event and I do mean it was a non event. Football games were far worse because football games you still had 80,000 people, but they were concentrated and sure, you're, not everybody stayed for all 10 hours. It got pretty, it got pretty cold. So once you heard your group, whoever you're going to leave. You know, I'm sure people left, but it really, I-I-I really, from the law enforcement aspect of this, it was as quiet as quiet can be. It was like a Sunday morning. Not that I ever worked Sunday mornings because I didn't have, because I always worked afternoons but it was just a quiet dead, you know, imagine a day in January when the students are gone. That's what it was like. It was really, it was nothing. And-and-and-and you know, you know, did we have EMS calls? I'm sure, but were they anything more than, you know, it was a good day. It was a good day because I've been here at the football stadium. Oh God. 84, 85 it was the Penn State game and we had a referee. It was hotter than snot. It was like in October, October 30th. Hotter than snot, that was the Penn state game. It is a three game and a referee died on the 50 yard line. Literally died on the 50 yard line of a heart attack. And we must have had, 50 EMS calls that day of people getting heat stroke and passing out cause there's no air going through the building. But that day was rather cool. It was not, it was cloudy, if I remember correctly. So we really didn't get a lot of people with heat stroke. 

I: Do you feel like the farm aid concert did make an impact on the local agricultural community? 

M: On the local agricultural community? No, but I think it made an awareness, at least temporarily, on the national level. It showcased the University of Illinois. I mean it really, it really did. You know, 30 years later, or how many years it’s been left. It really… I own a house in Indiana, and so I go there quite a bit. And I'm always amazed when I say something about the University of Illinois or Champaign, Urbana. The number of people say, “Oh yeah, I’ve been there.” And I'm like, what? Because when I applied here, I spelled Champaign, CHAMPAGNE. I'll never forget that. Right? I spelled it wrong. And it wasn't until I got hired, I realized they, that the name was different. I'm surprised they hired me, quite frankly. Okay, misspelled the name of the city, right? Throw that application out. 

I: Oh, don't worry, that's pretty common I think. Would you feel comfortable discussing more about how the farm crisis affected your wife's family? 

M: I don't know. I'd have to ask her you know. It came at a very difficult time for us because we were getting married. And, you know. We were both older. She was 31 and I was 29 so we were older, you know. But we had to pay for ourselves. 

I: Was the wedding on campus or? 

M: Oh dear mother of god no. It’s at the corner of university and state?

I: Okay.

M: At Emmanuel.

I: Oh, nice.

M: Yeah, day just like today as well. Well, no, it's clear. It was clear, but cold. But we ended up paying for the wed- and you know that's sort of approaches the subject, you know, should your parents pay for your wedding or your parents pay for your wedding, you know. The boy's family got some dog in this hunt. Let them pay for it too. You bet your parents don't want to hear that. 

I: That's all the questions I have. Does anybody else have anything they want to add? 

M: Like I said, it was from my perspective. And I was here the night before. It was quiet. The day of the concert, it was quiet and the night of the concert. But what will always stick out in my mind, until the day I die. Is watching those prisoners. Just work their tails off for baloney. And a baloney and ketchup sandwich. 

I: That is very interesting. 

M: And they got an orange, as their snack. I, and I will never forget that, especially since it was, you know four hours before or six hours before I was, you know, I was a king, you know, surrounded by kings. And yet I'm watching these poor fools just… Granted, you know, they're in the Department of Corrections. I get it, but still. Is there anything else? 

I: Um, no that's all.

M: Is that what you guys wanted? 

I: Yeah.

M:  You want to say anything? 

S: Well, you know, I just want- 

I: Oh yeah, I'm technically supposed to be talking the whole time so… 

M: Okay. Well, you know, I hope it's of some value to you. 

I: Oh yeah, this was an awesome interview there. 

M: You're gonna go home and say god, I had to dealt with this idiot. 

I: I’m gonna call my grandma after this and tell her that you met Johnny Cash, like I was at his museum in Nashville a couple weeks ago. 

M: Really? 

I: I love that man.

M: You know, they um, it was just, you know, I'm not starstruck because it's just not that way. But Jesus Christ, everytime time you turned around, there was somebody famous standing right there, and you're just like. 

I: Yeah um, which other celebrities did you see? 

M: Name ‘em, I mean if-

 

I: Loretta Lynn. 

 

M: I don't think I saw her, but I saw Willie Nelson was down there. Van Halen. I saw them. I just. I literally saw virtually everybody because there was no place, there was no, I mean the-the-the food line. I don't know about the food or what the food was or how long it's open with, but everybody you know either finished a set or was about to do their set. There really was no place for them to hang out. 

I: Yeah.

M: I mean there was no, you know things like this, this didn't exist. So they couldn't come up here and spend, you know, an hour or two killing time. So, you know, they don't want to be, you know, you're dealing with 80,000 people. You certainly can't walk through the crowd, right? I mean, seriously, you just can't do it. And-and-and I don't recall honestly any details assigned to them. In other words, we didn't have, you know, Johnny Cash had his own folks, but I don't remember us, you know, saying, okay, you're assigned to Johnny, you know there will be five of us because, for one thing, you know the other aspect you need to look at is the Champaign Police Department. I think everybody had to work. U of I everybody had to work. Urbana. But even on those things, you know, you've got officers who have to have time off. So if you go with an AB schedule, the Champaign at the time only had 90 officers. So if you go to an AB schedule, that's 45. So we could only have 45 cops here, which we didn't, but so you had to call in the state police. And so you really can't muster, that many law enforcement to come. It's not like Chicago, we can get 4000 cops down there. We were lucky. I bet you'd have to go look at the operational plan. You'd be lucky if we had, 100 cops. I would, I would say 100 cops would have been. I-I would have said I in fact, if-if I had to guess again, I'd probably say closer to 40. 

 

I: Gotcha. Was that pretty typical of events of that size at, on campus? 

 

M: For football games, I think we had like 15, 20. Because most of the time. You do-, you don't have problems during football. The worst experience? I can tell you is working NFL games. That's what you need to do a history project on. That was the worst experience of my life. I will never go to an NFL game as a result of that. It was the absolute positively, the worst, because U of I hosted the Bears when Soldier Field was being done and we hosted the Bears down here. It was absolutely the worst experience of my life. But that's another story for another day. Anything else?

I: No, I think that's it. 

 

M: You got anything? 

R: I just wanted to ask if you met like Bob Dylan or like…

M: I would’ve seen them all. I-I seriously you named somebody who was there, I would have seen them because they were, they were, we were in the bowels, is it bowels? Bowels off the assembly hall. They didn't have anywhere to go. There was no private rooms in the assembly hall. What they going to? Go the men's locker room? Seriously. No. So I saw everybody. Then again. You know, there's a fine line between, you know, you, you just can't walk up. There's nobody that's going to deny me an autograph. I guarantee it. You walk up in uniform, right? Hey, would you mind signing this? Oh, sure. No problems, right. They'll scratch your name. But it's just, again, do you want to do that because it's, you know, you're interfering. Because if I walk up to you and you're, you know, the three of you are talking. Right. And all of a sudden I walk up. All three of you gonna quit talking and look at me and say, can I help you, right? Am I right? So, you have that ability. To get people to talk to you that don't want to talk to you that you know are busy in a conversation, yet a Champaign police officer or U of I or Urbana or state police trooper walks up to you and listening to say, can I help you? And so now you're, you're interfering in their person. That was my opinion. And I don't know of anybody that day hat worked that got anybody's autograph. That was just something. And we were not told. But that's just something we just didn't do. That was not our, that was just not our cup of tea. 

 

I: No, that makes sense, yeah. 

 

M: I mean it really, I mean. You're here to do a job. I'm here to do a job. You know, the only time I'm going to get your signature’s on the bottom of the ticket. 

 

I: All right, Sir. Well, thank you so much for coming in. 

 

M: All right, you guys, good luck with this. 

 

I: Alright, thanks! 

 

M: Is this going to be posted online somewhere? 

 

I: It will be in the archives of the Champaign County History Museum in Spurlock, yeah. 

D: Basically what it said on the permission form you signed, that’s like the extent, and they’ll contact you further if anything needs to be public.

 

M: Um, so you're a junior?

 

I: A super senior. I'm like my 7th year of undergrad, finally graduating. 

 

M: So you go to school with Madison Phillips? She went to Saint Matthews. Because are you like 24, 25? 

 

I: I'm 25. 

 

M: OK, you would have, well, she's 26, so she would have been a year ahead of you. 

 

I: The name does sound familiar. 

 

M: She's only, she went there…Well, maybe not because she only went there, she played basketball for a couple of years. 

 

I: The name does sound familiar. 

 

M: That's my neighbor. 

I: Oh, awesome.

M: But my kids went to, my kids went to Addison and Central. So anyway, okay, well, good luck to you. You graduate too? Or you a junior? 

S: I'm a senior, so I graduate this semester. 

 

M: Okay, you still got time. Still got time. Chuck that beer can on a squad car. 

S: You didn’t tell me you were a previous police officer. I would not have expected you of all people to tell me to go chuck a beer can at a sq- 

 

M: You got to pay at the, at the end of the month. They send me a check. How is that pension fund going o get done. If you're not checking beer cans and paying into my pension, I may go hungry next month. You don't want me to go hungry do you?

S: You make a fair argument I’ll chuck in three.

M:  Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Thank you. Ladies. Gentlemen. 

Audio file

History Harvest Interview 2.m4a

Interview with Mark Medlyn

April 1, 2023

Memorial Stadium

Champaign, IL

GM= Gina Maggio (Interviewer)

MM= Mark Medlyn (Interviewee)

S= Sound Engineer

R= Record Keeper

Transcript

 00:00:24

GM: All right. We're recording. Yeah. OK. Hello. My name is Gina Maggio. This is April 1st, 2023, at Memorial Stadium for the History Harvest. Hello Sir.

MM: Hi, how you doing?

GM: Good! Could you spell your name?

MM: Mark. Last name is Mary Edward David Lincoln Young Nora.

GM: Cool. All right, so what role did you have with the Farm Aid concert?

MM: I was a Champaign police officer from 1978 until 2007. I was assigned at the time to the seven at night to 3:00 AM shift. So, my patrol zone at the time was the- (coughs), University of Illinois campus. We were responsible for everything other than University property, fraternities, sororities, residence halls. Green Street was all ours. Now, it's not. It belongs to the University Police Department. But at the time, it was all ours, so I was assigned to the campus district, so I would be working that Friday night. -I would have been working 7 at night, to 3 AM as a patrol officer.

GM: Awesome. So, uh, are you from Champaign originally?

MM: No, I'm from Bloomington Indiana. Ever hear of it?

GM: I've been to Indiana. Oh, I've been to Bloomington, yes. So, what was the crowd like that night?

MM: Well, it's- it's funny you should say that. So the night before I came in about 2:00 o'clock in the morning. And I'm working until 3:00, so you know. So I started wandering around and at the time this North End zone was not here. But I just walked into the building because... I could. And I remember plywood everywhere. Plywood covered the entire football stadium and there were the roadies that were setting up the-um, that were setting up the tower, which would have been in the North Stadium or North End zone, and so... I went home at 3:00 in the morning. Now I have to come back to work 12 hours later because they put us on 12 hour shift, so my normal shift, which was seven at night to 3:00 in the morning, is now 3:00 PM. to 3:00 AM, so it's 12 hours. It's  a miserably long day by any stretch of the imagination. So, I went to bed at 3,  literally about a mile from here and woke up about 10, which would be my normal time. And then I watched it on television. And so... I am, I come to work at 3:00. And they assign me a squad card. The only squad car!  That the Champaign police departments ever owned that didn't have an AM radio. So they put me behind the scoreboard. So that's my job- is to sit behind the scoreboard during the concert. I heard the concert. I am literally. ..20 yards away. But because the sound is going to the South, I really can't hear much and my job was to protect. the North End zone. So did I see the crowd? I'd get out occasionally and look, but I never had- If you were back there where I was, you were way up on the food chain, way up on the food chain! So, I watched the concert. Or listen to it and then... two stories pop up. It's time for me to go to dinner. Now remember this is farm made- it is food to die for, right? So we go- we're assigned to go certain hours since I worked three, I probably ate dinner around 5:30 or five thirty-ish. They said go down to the Assembly Hall. Go into the basement of the assembly hall and there's food there.

00:05:02

MM: So, I go to the assembly hall. And there's a line that's 30 or 40 yards long. And I'm at the very back and I've only got a finite amount of time. Now, one thing you have to understand about law enforcement is that you cannot touch me. When I'm working, that's just- no, you're not going to do it. You're especially not going to grab me. From the rear. And put your arm on me. That's just no bueno. That sends up all sorts.-even though we're in the basement of the assembly hall and I'm in- I'm looking at every, every artist you can imagine. All of a sudden this big hand grabs me in my right shoulder... and this voice behind me- and I'm looking at this hand and I'm thinking how am I going to get this guy that peel his hand off of me without being too overt? And this big voice says, “What are you doing back here?” And I'm looking straight ahead and I'm thinking well and I said, “Well, I'm just waiting for lunch- I'm waiting in line to get lunch.” “Oh well, you're working, man. You're going to come up with me!” and I look around. Like, who is this guy talking to me? I look around and its Johnny Cash. And I'm looking. And remember, I carry with me a pen and paper with me at all time, right? It took everything out of my... every- took everything in my bones not to just say can I have an autograph? So, I said “no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” He goes. “No, no, no, no. You you need to come up there.” I said “no, I really. I'm fine.” You know, I'm embarrassed everything. I just want to be that ant on the floor and crawl into a corner. I am so nervous as this point. It looked like Moses passing, parting the Red Sea. What was a line? 30 yards line. Suddenly everybody turned to the side and said good evening, Mr. Cash. And he walked me right up to the front. And suddenly every server looked at me like I was the most important person in the world. And I literally want to be about this tall. And they gave us the best food possible. I mean, it was to die for, okay?. So I eat and I just get out of dodge because, you know, you're- when you're in law enforcement, especially in a patrol car uniform, everybody looks at you, right? I mean, at a stoplight, you come up the stoplight. What's the first thing you do? Is look over to the police officer, right? I'm sorry, that's what you do and that's what everybody does! So, you're very conscious. You're very conscious that people stare at you, constantly. So, I just ate my lunch and I left, right? Went back to my spot. Okay, so it's a non-eventful night. It is a day just like today. It is cold, it is wet, it is miserable. The concert ends 7: 30, 9 o'clock. They released me from the stadium and they put me in a two man unit with the guy who eventually became a Champaign County judge, he was at the time a Champaign police officer. So now he and I are riding together and there was no problems. There were no problems at. All. I mean none, no. No. In fact it was... It was like September, what something? It was a typical- it was a deader than normal Campustown night, right? So, you know, we've got more units than you can shake a stick at, so we decide to come back and watch the tear down. Now remember, five hours earlier, I'd been eating like a king, right? Well, now they have Illinois Department of Corrections prisoners doing the teardown. Remember, we've got a thousand sheets of plywood, we've got trash, it's cold, the lights are on and I'll never forget this as long as I live. They were eating baloney sandwiches with ketchup and Swiss cheese or processed cheese. And Kool-Aid. And they worked harder than anybody I saw. They ran the whole time I was there and so, what time did they leave? So, you know- three in the morning, four, five, I don't know, but I'll never forget that within five hours, I'd been eating like a king, the best food I've ever had in my life.

00:10:05

MM: Except, of course, for my wife's cooking or my mother's, uh, the best food I've ever had! And then I'm watching these guys eat baloney and ketchup sandwiches.

GM: Yeah. Would you want to share, like the particular types of food that you ate?

MM: Whatever you wanted.! I remember the fried chicken. I remember the pork. It was just, I mean, it was just-, it was- it was so much it was ridiculous! I.mean it was, it was just so much, you could have whatever you wanted! At the time, I weighed 140 pounds, so I wasn't a big eater. But you just had, I mean, you could walk down there with two huge plates of food. It was- it was the- the food, at least for us- I don't know what the vendors were doing, but the food for us was to die for!

GM: Oh, I bet! Did, uh, you and Mr. Cash talk about anything?

MM: No, I was so embarrassed! I was, so- he just asked me how the day was going and I said fine, you know, we were, you know- I mean, you have to understand that there's a fine line. You know when you're in law enforcement, you want to be visible, but you want to be invisible, see what I'm saying? So, you know, I'm carrying a pad of paper and a pen. But you just can't whip it out and say, would you sign an autograph?

GM: Yeah.

MM: You just- I mean that, there is a sort of a line that you have to cross, you know? And I was quite frankly, I was just so stunned. I mean, I really was. I was just, I mean- I've met famous people in the past when I was in high school, I would- I would take pictures of oh, Mark Spitz, or um, do you know who he is?

GM: Sorry Sir, no.

MM: He- you know, he won like 8 gold medals at the Munich Olympics from Indiana University. Bill Russell, who just died, he was an NBA legend, so I've met lots of famous people, you know, and so, you know- I've met two vice presidents, a former president. But you know, so you really, just go up and say, hello and that's about all you, I mean- you know. Like I said, there's a fine line between Being seen and being invisible and you're trying to navigate that line.

GM: For sure, yeah. Another question I want to ask you as a fellow Johnny Cash fan, um, were there any songs of his that he performed that you were able to listen to or were your favorite?

MM: I listen to all of them, you know- Ring of Fire, okay. You know, I listen to it all as much as I could, but just being, you know that day., I mean that whole thing was brought together by the governor at the time, Jim Thompson, and uh,you threw that together within a few hours.

GM: Oh, wow.

MM: I mean it-it literally, it was Jim Thompson and Willie Nelson threw that together. And it was. Thompson was at the State Fair. Willie Nelson was at the State Fair. And they somehow threw it together. I mean, it was just, It was amazing that it could come together that quickly, and it went so well. I mean it was a- I mean, if you think you had.80,000 people, which is a football stadium crowd of people, so we were used to that. But you're not used to the security aspect of getting folks to the venue. You know, I can tell you there are a lot of helicopters landing down at the Assembly Hall. I remember that vividly. There's a helicopter every couple of minutes landing, taking somebody either to the venue or away. But you know, you had 80,000 people and there were literally probably less calls for service than we normally have on a day like that.

GM: Nice. Uh, let’s see, there was something else I wanted to ask. So, in this class we were also learning about the farm crisis and um, well, obviously like you don't have to answer any questions. you're uncomfortable answering or you're, um, but like- well, did you have any experiences with local farmers going through the Farm Crisis?

MM: Yes.

GM: That you want to share?

MM: It was a pretty miserable time for my wife's family. You know, they lost the farm.

GM: Oh, I’m so sorry.

MM: And uh, it was, uh, it was pretty hard. It was pretty, it was pretty hard. I mean, they had a very successful operation In an adjacent county, very successful, and you know, it just- the price of beans cratered. Price of corn cratered. But the debt, you know, my first house which I bought right after farm aid couple months after Farm aid was at 13% interest.